My adventures in cold process soap making

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My first blog post – not what I intended!

So my first blog post was supposed to show my intricate 6 colour drop/hanger swirl but my FO had other plans! I wasn’t planning on posting this soap on here but not_ally from SMF (Soap Making Forum) requested it so here it is!

I had big plans for this soap – it was to be poured into my log mould with a divider in place so the base soap would be pale pink and pale blue. Then I was planning on removing the divider and doing a drop swirl followed by a couple of sweeps with my hanger.

This is the recipe I used – one I’ve used before and know is slow moving.I also added 2 tsp sugar, a small ball of tussah silk and 0.5% of my total batch weight of EDTA. The FO is Yuzu from Gracefruit.

I like to soap at room temp as I find it (usually) gives me more time to work – I also always add my FO to my melted oils once they’ve cooled for the same reason (that and so I don’t forget it!!). I mixed my lye water with my oils and used my stick blender for just a couple of seconds and I could tell straight away it was going to accelerate – it got thicker but grainy not smooth like you want it to look when it hits trace. Within seconds I had a bucket shaped bar of soap – no soap on a stick as I got the SB out in time! I’d love to show you a pic of the soap at this point but I just wanted to get it out of there and into the slow cooker to melt it all down again.

As I was using a 30% lye solution I knew I would need to add some extra water to get the soap fluid enough to do anything with it – I added approx 90g of water and left it on low in the slow cooker to melt down the chunks.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to use all the colours I’d planned but was determined I was having at least 2 out of the 6! Split the batch into 2 jugs and added my micas (mixed with a little of my melted oils), mixed the colour in then warmed both in the microwave to loosen up again. I spooned (drop and plop) the soap into my mould, banging on the counter as I went to avoid air bubbles.

Here is it in the mould – not the refined soap I had in my mind when I started but it was soap and it was in the mould!

Not very pretty is it??!

The good thing is it was ready to unmould the following morning and that meant I got to try out my new multi bar cutter!

Using the cutter was a dream – sliced through the soap like a hot knife through butter! And it was so nice to have 9 totally even, straight bars!!

And here it is – the finished soap, I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome – not what I expected from the disaster I had.